The Supreme Court has struck down Nebraska's ban on late-term abortions, ruling that the ban violates the constitutional rights of women seeking to end a pregnancy. The 5-4 decision could have major ramifications in the 29 other states that have late-term procedure bans in place. In January, the Supreme Court reviewed the constitutionality of banning late-term abortions, often called partial-birth abortions. The case, Stenberg vs. Carhart, is the first one involving the controversial procedure to be considered by the Supreme Court.

On April 5, the U.S. House of Representative passed a partial birth abortion ban by a vote of 287 to 141, which is a large enough margin to override an expected presidential veto. Legislation banning the procedure has twice been passed by Congress, but President Clinton vetoed both bills. The president said he would sign a ban if it provided for exceptions in cases where the pregnancy presented a health risk to the mother.

Currently, 30 states have passed partial-birth abortions bans, but these laws face challenges in court. Laws in Nebraska, Iowa and Arkansas were struck down by federal appeals courts, while similar laws in Illinois and Wisconsin have survived legal challenges.

On One Hand...

Partial-birth abortion is murder, because the procedure is often performed on a viable fetus. For that reason, a federal ban is needed.

The law must not contain health exceptions that could be applied to non-life threatening conditions like depression, which would render the law meaningless and allow doctors to continue to perform partial-birth abortions on demand.

On the Other Hand...

The term "partial-birth abortion" is misleading and inflammatory. It is used by radical anti-choice groups as part of a strategy to criminalize all forms of abortion.

Specifically, existing laws banning late-term abortions were written to invite infringement on women's access to other forms of abortion, including procedures performed during the first trimester of a pregnancy. State laws often contain vague wording that could be applied to all pregnancy termination procedures and do not always specify the trimester during which procedures are prohibited.

• The medical term for the so-called partial-birth abortion procedure is Dilation and Extraction ("D&X"). The procedure involves extracting a fetus feet first from the uterus, then deflating the skull to remove the entire fetus through the birth canal.

• It is estimated that approximately 3,000 to 4,000 third-trimester abortions are performed annually in the United States. This represents 1% of all abortions performed every year.

• The late-term abortion procedure became widely know in 1992 when an abortion provider named Dr. Martin Haskell presented a paper on the procedure at a meeting of the National Abortion Federation.

NARAL, National Right to Life Committee